


Ghosting

by Wolvesandwerewolves



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28908897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolvesandwerewolves/pseuds/Wolvesandwerewolves
Summary: “Maybe the little girl isn’t really God,” Klaus says.Ben takes another deep breath. “Klaus. We are literally dead.”“I’m just saying! I always imagined God to be this genderless, amorphous blob. Like space.”—————This is absolutely what will not happen in season three but it was fun to write!
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 5
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i am slowly crawling my way out of burn out .... anyways here y’all go lol

Klaus will admit, he doesn’t help much.

Most of the others end up splitting off, taking on the new Sparrow Academy one on one, switching when they can and trying to protect one another. But he _can’t_ —he’s having trouble paying attention. He’s loosing time. One second, he’s idly listening to Reginald but staring at Ben— _Ben, oh my God, he just_ lost _Ben, but he’s right in front of him, right there—_ and then in the next second, there’s a knife whistling past his face, and the tip of his ear stings. He blinks, and Diego is on top of him, and _God_ , he’s heavy.

He says as much.

“Oh, Diego, what have you been _eating?_ Can I have some?”

“Get your head in the game!” Diego shouts, voice gruff.

He grabs him roughly by the shoulders, and Klaus gasps as his brother pulls him up and pushes him forward, ducking behind the couch—the same couch he once overdosed on, and nearly threw up on, the same one he stayed up on all night, waiting for Five to come home, and he never did. 

He thinks it’s the same, anyway. It looks just like the memories from his childhood. He’s not entirely sure they’re in the same universe, though. Maybe it’s a sister couch. A sister couch to a sister world, and a brother Ben to—well, _his_ brother Ben.

He wonders where he is in this universe. Maybe it’s the same couch, and he really is here, and so is Ben.

He hopes it’s a different couch.

“Come on, Klaus!” Diego shouts.

Klaus groans. It’s so loud. It’s Vietnam— _Dave, blood, bullets flying and people screaming, his throat hurts—_ but he blinks, and it’s not. It’s just the Academy. He doesn’t know when the house had time to become so loud—the silence was ringing just a few moments ago. Now there’s screaming, taunting, crashing and the creak of splintering wood. Every single one of his siblings is fighting, even Vanya, but—it’s obvious she’s exhausted. The FBI building, the farm and the Commission—that was _yesterday._ She’s running low on fuel. They all are.

God, he’s tired.

But there are plenty of ghosts. Some, he recognizes— not in the face, or their names. He doesn’t know who they are, honestly. But he has seen their open, gaping wounds his entire childhood. The blunt force trauma. The missing limbs. The broken jaws, crushed skulls and faces. The insides, on the outside. The blood.

Ben. Ben did this.

And—he’s trying to right now. His _siblings._

“Duck!” Diego shouts, shoving him again.

He falls down slowly. Diego flies away slowly, too. Not that he can fly. One of the Horror’s tentacles is wrapped around his chest, and he watches in horror— _he would make a joke about this, maybe, and Ben would groan, and then he’d fight back, but Ben is fighting against them—_ and Diego crashes through the tall windows overlooking the courtyard that Ben was buried in. He lands in a heap of splintered glass and broken frames, the curtains cloaking his body in red. Red like blood.

Ben did this.

_“Diego!”_ Klaus screams, but Diego does not get up.

_Ben. Ben did this._

He turns, jerks away from one brother and towards another.

_How?_

Ben, who he bickers with constantly. Ben, who never gives up on him. Ben, who reads to him when he’s sick, or drunk or high, who gives him the silent treatment every time he has a hangover; who makes fun of him, encourages him; who has stayed next to him through every fight, every bad night for the last twenty years.

Ben, who looked right at and through him, said, _“Dad, who the hell are these people?”_ Ben, with his awful hair, and his ugly almost-mustache. Ben, who just threw _Diego,_ his _brother_ , out a _window._

Ben, who is surrounded by ghosts.

Klaus takes a deep, shuddering breath. He wipes his face, grabs the outstretched arm of a broken ghost to get himself off the ground. His hands glow blue.

“You want revenge?”


	2. Chapter 2

Ghosts surround Ben—Other Ben, Not Ben—in a tight crowd. There are so many of them. Screaming. Clawing, biting, yanking. They’re angry.

So is Klaus. He’s angry and hurt and— _mourning_ , too. He misses Ben so much it hurts. _This place_ hurts. He would have rather stayed in the past—escape to the yurt with his siblings, and Sissy and Harlan and Ray, too. He’d get them all their own yurts. He’d travel, and keep an eye on Dave, and pray to meet up after the war, and maybe they would. Maybe he would have married Dave, and they would’ve evaded taxes together. They’d have a small, beautiful ceremony together surrounded by his family—Luther, Diego, Alison, Five, Vanya—Sissy, Harlan and Ray. He’d miss Ben, but he would have everyone else.

_(Alison wouldn’t have Claire. He wouldn’t have Ben. And he knows the past wasn’t all that—the suffocating cult, the homophobia and racism, no Beyoncé—no Dave, not really. )_

But maybe it wouldn’t _hurt_ this bad. He yearns for that. Klaus doesn’t want to be here.

But he is. He’s standing in a house that used to be his, but maybe never really was. He’s pouring everything he has into the dead that surround him, more than he ever has before. The same ghosts that used to haunt him as a child, used to try to tear him apart and ghost _him_ —they’re fighting for him.

He’s not sure if he’s feeding off the ghosts or if they’re feeding off of him. Maybe it’s both.

There are too many for Ben to fight off, even with the Horror. The undead have the advantage—they can’t die again. Every time Ben sends one flying overhead, they get up and start over.

It doesn’t last as long as Klaus thinks it would have. He takes a deep breath, bites his lips and squeezes his eyes shut. Then he lets his hands drop, lets the ghosts fade out of corporeality. They part for him, make a crowded isle, and he walks over to his (not) brother with heavy steps.

Ben is lying on the ground, staring up at him. Gasping. There’s pain in his eyes, blood on the corner of his mouth. Scratches and red marks litter his face, trail down his neck. His clothes are torn. A few ghosts haven’t gotten the message, or they don’t realize they’re not whole, because they keep swiping at him, biting and screaming. He looks terrified. Pained.

There is so much blood.

Klaus remembers a cold winter day, so, _so_ many years ago, when they found Ben after the mission. Cold and covered in blood. Gone.

What is he even doing here? Why are they fighting?

_(He’s never even killed anyone before. Not personally. Not ruthlessly. Even in the war, he avoided death as much as he could.)_

“Ben,” Klaus says, and chokes on his name. He wipes his eyes again, slowly kneels to the ground so he isn’t so tall, looking down on him. “Ben, I’m _sorry._ I’m sorry. I—”

He thinks of their childhood, the training and missions they were forced to endure. The abuse. He thinks of that dinner they had with dear, old Reggie—and how strict he was when he was their dad. How much worse it could have been if he thought—his _experiment_ didn’t turn out.

Ben is still gasping. The sound is wet.

“Fuck, I should have gone after Reginald instead of yo—”

Pain erupts in his stomach, his chest. Ben’s stomach glows blue, and the tentacles of the Horror are suddenly a part of Klaus, too—they’re in his stomach, in his chest. Not just Ben’s.

_Oh, God._

Someone screams his name. He can’t answer. He can’t breathe.

Klaus’s vision whites out. The noise surrounding him fades to a high pitch ringing.

He blinks. Luther has an axe.

He’s loosing time again.

He blinks. He’s in a car. Someone holds his hand.

The ringing fades out to the sound of birds chirping.


	3. Chapter 3

The Afterlife is just as he remembers it from last time.

Klaus is lying on the ground. The dampness of the dirt soaks through the clothes he’s wearing—again, the only thing here with any color—and the wet earth sticks to his skin. He digs his fingers in, thinks of Ben when he possessed him—how _awful_ it was, how much he misses it now. Even if it was wrong, and painful, and disturbing, it was Ben. _His_ Ben.

Ben, who is probably here in the Afterlife. Maybe has been since the 60’s, if time exists in this realm.

_(Unless_ _his Ben ceased to exist. Unless the only Ben in the universe now was the one he killed, who killed him, and tried to kill his siblings. Unless they messed up so badly they erased their own brother from ever existing near them, and replaced him with an angrier, scarier Ben that does not know them and doesn’t want to.)_

Klaus closes his eyes, breathes in through his nose and meditates. The musty smell of fresh rain and mud. The birds chittering above him. Leaves rustling in the light breeze. A cricket, somewhere nearby. Dirt underneath his fingernails.

The ringing of a bike, wheels dragging through the earth and breaks squeaking.

“What are you doing up here?”

Klaus hums. He doesn’t open his eyes. “I’m on vacation. Taking a nap. Thought I’d visit my brother, and my least favorite deity.”

“Hmph. Why don’t you vacation in Florida? Looks like you could use the sun.”

Klaus cracks one eye open and frowns. She’s wearing the same dress she was last time. He’s wearing the clothes he died in, although thank God—actually, he won’t—that he isn’t covered in blood or the Horror. He wonders if Ben is still wearing the same leather jacket he’s worn for the last twenty years. If he’s here, he hopes not. Ben deserves some new clothes.

“And miss out on the beauty up here? Besides, this is cheaper. You have better rates.”

The girl crosses her arms, lifts her chin up even when she’s looking down at him. “I won’t always be here for you, Klaus. You have to learn that for yourself.”

“Oh, what a relief. You won’t always be here.”

She narrows her eyes. “You have more time than your last visit.”

Last visit. _So he isn’t dead._ Or at least, not forever. He can’t stay.

But _—Ben. Maybe he is here._

_Don’t get your hopes up, Klaus._

“But hurry it up. I still don’t like you.”

Klaus wonders if he’s gotten any better on that front himself. But he doesn’t answer, just sits up and follows her eyes to the same little cottage he went through last time.

He hopes it’s not a barber shop this time.

“See you on the flip side,” he says, and curtsies with a wink.

He slips his shoes off on the way over, feels the dirt In between his toes and thinks of his brother. _Ben, Ben, please be Ben._

He doesn’t knock when he gets there, just turns the knob and opens the door. When he steps inside, he’s surprised—it’s not a barber shop. It’s not even a cottage, like he was expecting it to be, or a grand library with a million books.

It’s an apartment.

His apartment, actually. Or, it almost was, or could have been. From years ago. He wasn’t into hard drugs back then, just alcohol to pleasantly dull his senses. Ben wanted to run away. He remembers him reading about emancipation, before it happened. There were apartment listings collected, hidden in a book in Ben’s room. He wanted out.

Klaus invited himself to the tour, made sure to be sober for it. Ben liked the place—really liked it. Started planning where to put his furniture, which direction he was going to face his bed. Made jokes about inviting everyone over for a sleepover, and letting Klaus sleep in the closet.

He died before he made any moves for it. Klaus begged Alison to rumor them into okay-ing his fake emancipation and credit history. She did.

He never moved in.

“Nice place,” he says quietly, startling Ben from where he sits in a comfy looking armchair, a book in his hands that doesn’t look familiar. His clothes don’t look familiar, either. It’s as nice as it is unsettling seeing him in a plain T-shirt. His tattoo is visible on his wrist, the matching one he has with all of his siblings.

He wonders if Other Ben and his siblings have tattoos of a sparrow instead of an umbrella. For some reason, he hopes they do.

“Oh, no,” Ben says, slamming the book shut. A shiver rolls through his spine. “Klaus. What are you doing here?”

Klaus grins. He feels like crying. God, he doesn’t know what to tell Ben. _You killed me, but it’s okay. I bounce back easy enough, and you’re dead too!_

Instead, he clears his throat, says, “I guess I just couldn’t live a day without you,” and starts laughing hysterically. He doesn’t know why. It’s not even funny. It isn’t.

But the next thing he knows, Ben is holding him tight and he’s crying into his brother’s shoulder.

“I missed you,” he admits.

Ben sighs. He drops his own forehead to Klaus’s shoulder.

“I missed you, too.”


	4. Chapter 4

Once he’s done crying, and he and Ben pull apart, he lets his brother push him gently onto a couch he didn’t notice was there earlier. Ben sits next to him, hands him a mug of hot chocolate that seems to have just appeared out of thin air. The comforts of Afterlife, he supposes.

It’s warm in his hands, almost too sweet on his tongue.

He wishes he could stay forever.

“What are you doing here, Klaus?” Ben asks, again.

Klaus hesitates. He dips a finger into his hot chocolate, swirls the marshmallows around in a tiny whirlpool. He waits for Ben tell him to knock it off, or stop playing, or answer him or something. He doesn’t. Ben is patient.

_Hurry it up,_ she’d said.

“Oh, I’m just visiting. Just passing through. I was in the neighborhood, thought I’d say _Hello,”_ he says, and waves his hand with the _HELLO_ tattoo.

“So you’re not staying,” Ben says.

Klaus can’t tell if he’s disappointed or relieved. Either way, he wants to be insulted.

He takes another sip of his hot chocolate.

“Please tell me you didn’t kill yourself just to come say hi, Klaus.”

Klaus laughs. _I wish,_ he thinks. _I fucking wish._

He thinks of what his body looks like down on Earth. He thinks of the ghosts that he let tear Ben up. He wonders how similar they must be, now, and shudders.

“How bad was it?”

“It was bad,” he whispers, before he even decides to. He closes his eyes.

“Oh, Klaus.” Ben reaches out, puts a hand on his shoulder. Somehow, he’s not as disapproving as he thought he would be. Maybe it’s because he’s already dead. “What did you do?”

Klaus clears his throat, shakes his head. His eyes feel too hot. He feels distant from this place—maybe he really shouldn’t be here.

But he is. Because of—he shakes his head again. Ben is _right here._ It wasn’t his Ben. “I didn’t. Kill myself, I mean.”

Ben’s hand slowly slides off his shoulder. “What happened?”

_Blood. Ben crying, gasping as he died. The pain in his stomach, the red hot wet spreading through. Ben, the_ Horror _, the person he’s been closest to for almost his entire life, killing him. Dying._

Suddenly Klaus wants to be touched, held by Ben and reassured just as much as he needs to get away from him. It’s two Ben’s. His and another. Ben would never.

But he did.

He takes a shaky breath, sets the hot chocolate on the floor and scoots back, away from Ben. He spreads his feet out as a silent compromise, to himself and his brother. His bare toes brush up against the fabric of Ben’s sweatpants. Ben sets a hand on his ankle.

It’s comforting. He tries not flinch.

“We messed up,” Klaus says, arms wrapping around his stomach. “Again.”

“Another apocalypse?”

Klaus shakes his head, then shrugs. “I don’t know,” he admits.

At the dinner with Dad in the 60’s, they mentioned it. Or at least, he thinks they did, or maybe Five did, but that night was a blur for him. Either way, he _knew_. He knew about the apocalypse in 2019 that followed them to 1963.

And he assumed—correctly, admittedly—that it was their fault. That they caused the apocalypse.

That they were the bad guys.

_These are the Six Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Harbingers of Destruction. Strength, Object Manipulation, Manipulation of Will, Control of Time and Space, Death, and Sound._

Which is a pretty broken way to look at it, if you ask him. Pretentious. Not at all accurate.

_Kill them, and save the world._

Klaus takes another shaky breath, and tells his brother everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sup fam, here i am, cleaning out my drafts. this was supposed to be a lot longer and have a lot more ~plot~ including the siblings realizing klaus can come back from the dead and a whole lot of klaus whump but it’s whatever 
> 
> i am getting back into the swing of things 
> 
> xoxox


	5. Chapter 5

Klaus started drinking when they were just kids. He told Ben once, that the first time he ever got drunk was an accident. The ghosts wouldn’t leave him alone, and he couldn’t sleep, so he drank almost an entire bottle of NyQuill stolen from the infirmary.

Ben thinks they might have been around ten years old, then.

After Five, Ben almost convinced him to sober up. Almost.

After he died, it got worse. It wasn’t immediately—he watched Klaus take a sip from a flask after he summoned him, right after his funeral. But it was just a sip.

The day dragged on, and Ben saw every ghost Klaus saw. The woman in the kitchen that hummed the same tune continuously, miming baking cookies over and over. The old man in the corner of the bar that had a missing eye. The young woman in a stained nightgown, neck bent in an unnatural position. The people who died in the house, and stayed in the house, or the ghosts that wandered aimlessly.

But also.

The casualties—the _people—_ who died fighting against the Umbrella Academy kids and then followed them home. The people _Ben_ , specifically, had killed. The ghosts who had missing limbs, who stumbled on broken bones, who were covered in so much blood it was hard to tell clothes from skin from open wounds.

Ben doesn’t like to think about it, but he thinks part of the reason Klaus got into hard drugs was so he wouldn’t have to come face to face with the people he was forced to kill. Or maybe it was just inevitable, another stray piece of hay on a weak camel’s back. The ghosts might have been bad enough.

It was only a week and a half after he died that Klaus took OxyCotin for the first time—crushed it up on the edge of the bathroom sink, snorted it and waited for the ghosts to disappear. Ben didn’t see much of the people haunting them after that. The ones that he killed.

But he still remembers them. And he knows Klaus does, too.

Ben clears his throat. Klaus stopped talking a while ago, he thinks. Time in this dimension passes by in moments, not seconds. The empty silence in front of them feels like it stretches on for days. Klaus looks like he’s spacing out.

He’s easy to read. Like a book he’s read a thousand times. He knows each and every facial expression, every twitch or fidget, what it means when he sighs or slouches or laughs. His body language is easy.

He’s scared and hurt. Hugging him right now could be a comfort or a mistake. Ben doesn’t know, but he _should_ know.

“Klaus.”

Klaus flinches at his voice, a small aborted reaction that he tries to hide with a smile and a laugh. His heart clenches. “Yes, O brother of mine?”

Ben sighs. For the first time since coming here, he feels so unsure. Of course it would be Klaus to make him feel this way. He doesn’t know what to do.

He wants to leave, but he knows he can’t. He’s not Klaus.

“Are you saying that I killed you?”

Klaus shrugs. He hasn’t looked him in the eye since he told him, and now he’s looking very seriously at his hands. “You were wearing a different outfit.” His voice sounds small, far away. “I don’t think it was you.”

Ben looks down at himself. He’s wearing a dark purple T-shirt, black sweatpants and long socks that have tiny blue octopuses on them. No shoes. “I’m wearing a different outfit right now.”

“Yeah,” Klaus sighs. “Didn’t I get those socks for you?”

He’s changing the subject. Ben thinks of the ghosts he saw for the first time, and he imagines his brother’s own face on their broken bodies.

For once, he lets the conversation drop.

Ben nods. Their eleventh birthday. And the sweatpants he got from Mom, for his last. “You thought it was hilarious.”

“It is hilarious. I’m hilarious, and also amazing.”

“And you’re also _leaving_. Time’s up, Klaus.”

Ben turns to see the little girl who first greeted him years ago. He remembers Klaus telling him about her, the night after he died for the first time. The first time that wasn’t an overdose, where he was given a dose of Naloxone or a shock to the heart.

He looks back to his brother. His eyes are screwed shut, mouth pursed like he’s in pain. He’s not, but if he really does wake up—he will be.

And Ben—the portal that leads to the Horror—will be the one that hurt him. Even if it was another version of him, he doesn’t care. Klaus still died. He still remembers _Ben_ killing him.

And he flinched, earlier, when Ben said his name.

So Ben makes up his mind. He turns back to God, stands up from the couch and steps sideways so Klaus is behind him.

“I’m going with him.”

God sighs, and behind him Klaus squeals.

“Um, what, Ben? Ben?”

“Shut up, Klaus,” Ben hisses. He doesn’t take his eyes off the girl, but he can hear Klaus shifting on the couch, standing up. “I want to go back.”

God looks unimpressed. “You already moved on,” she says.

“No, I didn’t,” Ben says and he wonders if it’s a lie or not.

“Oh, um,” Klaus says, and stands next to him. He leans against Ben, throws one arm around his shoulders. It feels more stiff that he remembers. “What if I can just—y’know—check him out?”

“What?”

“Like a library book!” Klaus says, like it makes perfect sense.

Ben frowns. He very deliberately does not take his gaze off of her. She doesn’t look much impressed over Klaus’s idea of his wording.   
  


Of course she isn’t.

“I’ll come back,” he promises. “Please. Let me go.”

God sighs. She crosses her arms at them and scowls. “You’re both annoying. And this isn’t up to me.”

“Who is it up to?” Ben asks, but she shakes her head.

“I can’t do everything around here. Figure it out yourselves,” she says, and then she’s walking away, out the door.

“Is she always this mean, or is it just me? I’m still agnostic, by the way!” Klaus says, and Ben groans.

“Don’t antagonize her.”

“She antagonized me,” Klaus says, and sniffs.

Ben sighs. He turns away, starts pacing back in forth on the rug of his living room. Klaus sighs, dramatically, and drops back onto the couch. He sprawls out like a starfish, limbs open wide, leaves no room for Ben to sit next to him. Maybe he doesn’t want Ben to sit next to him. Maybe he needs space, after—what happened. What the other version of him did to him.

He’s dead. Because Ben killed him.

Maybe he doesn’t even want Ben to go with him, back to Earth.

But he _has to._ There’s no way he would be able to forget this or forgive himself for something he wasn’t even there for. He needs to go back, and take care of Klaus like he’s been doing since he was sixteen years old. He needs to see their siblings and needs them to know it wasn’t him.

He needs to make it up to them. If he can, anyways.

“We need to figure this out.”

“Maybe the little girl isn’t really God,” Klaus says.

Ben takes another deep breath. “Klaus. We are literally dead.”

“I’m just saying! I always imagined God to be this genderless, amorphous blob. Like space. Maybe she’s just a Demi-god! Like us.”

“That’s—Klaus, we’re not—okay, I’m going to keep thinking, but we’ll keep that in mind,” Ben says, because at this point, it’s pointless to argue with him, when he’s being purposefully ridiculous like this—oh, wait. “Like us? Klaus, what if it’s up to us?”

“So you do think we’re Demi-gods?”

“No, genius, I’m saying it’s our decision to go back.”

Klaus blinks at him. “Is it?”

“Well, it was my decision to come here. Maybe it’s my decision to leave.”

“Okay. You first.”

_He is so annoying._

“And leave you here by yourself?” Ben huffs. “Nice try, Klaus. Scooch over.”

Klaus sighs and rolls his eyes, but he shifts on the couch and curls his legs up to his stomach. Ben sits on the end by his feet, careful not to touch him—just in case.

“We’ll do it together,” he says.

“Oh, perfect!” Klaus claps his hands, clasps them and folds them behind his head like a pillow. “What are we doing together?”

_“Leaving.”_

“Right.” He sighs. “I wish I had sparkly, red shoes. Those would probably help. Do you think so?”

“I regret making you watch that,” Ben retorts, no heat.

He hesitantly reaches an open hand out towards Klaus’s leg, slowly enough to give him time to move away, if he needs to. He doesn’t. The bare skin of the top of his foot is cold. “Just...close your eyes. Think. Maybe we have to...” He hesitates, unsure of how to put it in words. He just needs to go home. Klaus can’t go back alone.

He thinks of their siblings, every single one of them. He imagines hugging them, finally being able to talk with them after _years._ He imagines the feel of the sun on his skin the time he possessed Klaus, how his entire body felt _alive_.

“Nothing’s happening,” Klaus whispers, after a whole ten seconds.

Ben scowls. “You’re impatient.”

“That’s one of my virtues.” He grins, then suddenly pulls away from Ben and stands. Ben frowns, but he lets him up.

“Come on.” Klaus yawns, stretches up and raises on his toes before relaxing again. Then he turns towards Ben, stretches his hand out in invitation. Ben takes it, lets his brother pull him up. He heads towards the door, and doesn’t let go of his hand even when he reaches for the handle.

“It can’t be that easy,” Ben says.

Klaus doesn’t answer him, just grins and lets the door swing open. There’s a bright, all encompassing bright light he has to close his eyes against. It feels warm, then blazing hot, so intense he loses all sensation. He can’t feel himself, or Klaus’s hand in his or anything at all. Then it fades away.

Ben opens his eyes, and they’re sitting on the back seat of their father’s limo, the one that faces the rear window. Vanya is next to them, both hands pressed against her mouth. On the seat opposite them is Luther, sitting next to Diego, their shoulders pressed against each other. Alison kneels on the floor in front of them, hovering, hands floating above the mangled corpse sprawled across their brother’s laps. He’s bloodied, mouth slightly ajar and stained a glossy, wet red. His eyes are open. Glassy.

_Klaus_.

He’s dead.

And he’s sitting right next to him. Still.

Klaus is a ghost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha whoops chapter 4 was supposed to be the last but then i found this in my scrap notes (which is honestly where i dug this entire story out of) so uh...here 
> 
> this was mostly just for fun, sorry for widely varying chapter lengths 
> 
> xoxoxo goodnight


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